Using the Shift+Arrow Keys to Extend a Text Selection in Both Directions
Everyone knows that you can hold down the Shift key and then use the arrow keys to extend a text selection. Well, this is all pretty straightforward when you want to extend the selection in just one direction, but what if you want to extend it in both directions?
In this case you need to know one tiny little detail: When you hold down the Shift key, and for as long as you hold it down, InDesign will only shrink or grow the selection from the first side you started changing. The trick to getting the selection to shrink or grow in both directions is to temporarily lift up on the Shift key before switching the side of the selection that you want to change.
Let’s say that you have a word surrounded by quotation marks and you want to select the entire thing. You can double click on the word and this will get you most of the way there but you are still left having to select those pesky quotation marks.
Double clicking selects your word? but what if you also wanted to select those quotation marks?
OK, no big deal, you say to yourself, you know how to get past this. So you hold down the Shift key and use your Right Arrow key to extend the text selection to include the right quotation mark. Sweet! You’re almost there!
Almost there! You are so close to selecting all the text you can almost taste it!
Keeping the Shift key held down you then press the Left Arrow key to extend the selection in the other direction and select the left quotation mark. But do you get what you want? No! You have just unselected that right quotation mark and you’re right back where you started!
What the...?! After using the Left Arrow key you are right back where you started. You clench your puny fists and raise them to the sky? Khaaaaaaaaaan!
OK, champ, calm down! Calm down! I believe in you. You can do this. Remember: Every time you press down on the Shift key you get to tell InDesign again which side of the selection you want to add to or subtract from.
Let’s start over from the beginning. Double click the word to select it. Next, hold down the Shift key and press the Right Arrow key to select the right quotation mark. Good job! You’re doing it!
Now, before you hit that Left Arrow key, lift up on the Shift key for a second. Now press down on the Shift key again and use your Left Arrow key. And you did it! All of the text is now selected! You rock!
Shift+Right Arrow key extends the selection to the right. Temporarily lift up on the Shift key. Shift+Left Arrow key now lets you extend the selection to the left.
So remember, the trick to extending a text selection in both directions is to temporarily lift up on the Shift key before switching the side of the selection that you want to change.
Shift+arrow left. Shift+arrow right. Mr. Miyagi would be proud of you.
Of course, I am not the first to come across this little bit o’ goodness. You can find an earlier post on this topic by the Blatman himself at https://creativepro.com/selecting-text-doing-the-finger-dance.php
Evil InDesign users everywhere shudder when they hear his name. They call him... The Blatman!
 |
LOL! But I’m baffled at how you discovered my alternate identity! I’ve covered my tracks so carefully… well, at least you don’t know where my secret Blat-cave is… (Of course, I spent the first half of my life dreading puns on my name. I guess I’m resigned now.)
But seriously, this is a great recap of a really important (and often baffling!) little “feature” in InDesign. Thanks!
Great tip! That has always been a minor source of frustration.
Thanks,
Ariel
I could say something like “Holy Shift, Blatman!” … but I won’t.
It’s the return of the patient user.
Had no idea about this! Thanks! :-)
Towards the mastery, step by step? Thanks for another little great step, David.
Awesome! This is going in my toolbox. :)
Such a simple thing but such a great thing to know
Thank You
The exact same behaviour happens when selecting with the mouse.
In fact, I’ll sometimes double click the word, then hold shift to select to keep selecting to the right.
If you keep on pressing shift, and select something to the left, you’re unselecting what you just selected.
If you release shift and press shift again, you can add text from the opposite direction.
I find it quite unusual to stumble upon something new and useful in InDesign for the last few years, but this certainly outshines all spring-loaded nonsense and similar.
Most probably a feature from days when Adobe were producing programs for users instead of shareholders.
That is pretty cool! It also works a word at a time when you hold down the CTRL key, and to the end or beginning of the line when you use END or HOME. Including ENTER will select paragraphs. Thanks for a great tip. I just love these kinds of shortcuts!
wow its a ultimate solution for the selection. i like it.
Thanks
Wonderful tip! Thank you very much, Blatman. This tip will save me hours!!
Another note that was not mentioned here: you can also use the up and down arrows to add to your selection, one line at a time.
Hey,
I’ve got a slightly different issue. I’m trying to select not a paragraph or a story of text but want to select various words within a story and then change the style of just the selected words.
Is there some way to do this using InDesign CC?
Frank
Frank, if you are just changing one or two words you can just select them and then apply a Character Style that applies whichever attributes you want, but if you are changing lots of words you can use Find and Change to apply different formatting across your entire document really quickly and easily.
To do this, just open the Find/Change dialog, type the word you want to find into the Find What field but leaver the Change field blank (this is important!). Then double click on the Change Format area at the bottom of the Find/Change panel to open the Change Format dialog. Once the Change Format dialog appears, set the attributes that you want to change (or select a Character Style to apply if you have already created one), then OK out of the dialog. Click on the Change All button and boom! you’re done! By not putting any text into the Change To field InDesign will just apply the formatting that you specified to the text that entered in the Find What field. Pretty nifty.
Before you do the Change All, however, make sure that you have the Search popup set correctly (Story, Document, whatever), otherwise you might not get the results that you expected. And you can always Undo if you do mess up so feel free to be fearless! (but also remember to save a backup version of your file now and again, just in case…)
Ashley,
Thanks for the suggestion. However, I was aware of this capability. Let me try to be more specific here…In MS Word a user can select an individual word, hold the ctrl key down and select any other word on any other line and change the style of all selected words. How to do in InDesign?
1. I’m not looking for specific words so Find/Change does not work.
2. I am looking to change the character style of many words within a story. In some casees the words are stand-alone and in some cases they are groups of words.
3. Right now all of these words are in a story of mixed styles on each line.
I tried the following:
1. Under “Type” I’ve used “Find Font” but that doesn’t seem to find text within a story. It does find the fonts in tables. The text to be changed is within the story.
2. I’ve tried to use “Find Format” and “Change Format” with the Find/Change dialog but that does not seem to work for me.
Frank,
The Eyedropper tool is the closest thing in InDesign to that copy/paste formatting ability in Word. You can learn all about it in the article at https://creativepro.com/use-eyedropper-tool-to-copy-formatting.php.
If, however, the Character Style that you want to change is already applied to all the words, you can can also use Find/Change to find words based on their formatting. In this case, just leave the Find What and Change To fields empty and use the Find Format dialog to specify the Character Style of the words you are looking to change.
Thanks Ashley. I’ll take a look at the eyedropper tool. The Find/Change does not work when i look for formatting only within the story. Frustrating not knowing why but thanks for your suggestions.
Ashley,
The eyedropper tools does it, and a lot more I was unaware of! Thanks so much for your time, you made my life much easier.
Frank